Pages

Monday, January 26, 2015

Third Circuit on Public Employees, Free Speech, and Mistakes of Fact

This is my snow-shoveling half-time break:

A New Jersey police officer picked up a campaign yard sign for a mayoral candidate. A fellow police officer spotted him in the act. The next day, one of his supervisors confronted him about supporting this candidate, and the officer was immediately demoted to "walking duty." This sounds like a pretty good First Amendment retaliation case, huh?

Nope. It turns out it isn't. The Third Circuit issued its opinion in Heffernan v. City of Paterson last week. The police officer was picking up a campaign sign . . . but he was picking up the campaign sign for his bedridden mother. He testified that he was not "politically involved" and had no intention of conveying a particular political message. Therefore, he did not engage in protected free speech. And he was not actually affiliated with the campaign at all (goodbye, free association claim).

But wait . . . are you telling me that a public employer can retaliate against an employee for supporting a political candidate if it turns out they're wrong about his actual support? Pretty much. The Court expressly rejected this "perceived support" theory ("where the employer’s retaliation is traceable to a
genuine but incorrect or unfounded belief that the employee
exercised a First Amendment right.").

Directories and Profiles

Lawffice Space - Pennsylvania and Federal Labor & Employment Law Blog

Produced by Philip Miles, an attorney with McQuaide Blasko in State College, Pennsylvania. McQuaide Blasko also has offices in Hershey and Hollidaysburg. Mr. Miles works in the firms's Litigation and Labor & Employment Law practice groups, providing legal services to employers and employees relating to human resources, employment discrimination, and other employment law issues.